Link Building for Law Firms: How it Works

Link building is a staple of law firm SEO. Successful link-building campaigns can elevate your brand to the top of Google’s search results for the most lucrative keywords.

For example, the first Google result holds a 28.5% click-through rate. Understandably, reaching these top spots can deliver more eyes and business for your law firm.

So, how do you run a successful link-building campaign?

The purpose of link building for law firms

Link building means getting other websites to insert links pointing to your content. It’s a critical signal Google looks for. It is thought, based on data through many studies, that the more backlinks from reputable websites, the more trustworthy a page is.

From a law firm’s perspective, link building is one of the key performance indicators for their SEO campaigns. Solicitors across the UK build links to boost their rankings and attract more traffic.

However, it can also be used to build and solidify relationships within the industry, which can support their businesses in other ways.

What do backlinks accomplish for law firms?

Backlinks accomplish a range of goals. The obvious benefit of attracting backlinks to your website is bolstering your SEO efforts. According to Search Engine Land, backlinks are one of the top two criteria Google looks at when determining their rankings.

Not all backlinks are equal, though. It’s all about quality over quantity. This is why a backlink from the BBC News website will always outweigh backlinks gained from local UK newspapers.

Besides rising up the Google SERPs, why should your law firm invest in link-building campaigns?

Expand Your Reach – Naturally, the higher you rank, the greater your reach. Hit the top three spots, and you’ll get the most traffic from that search term. A more extensive reach means more business.

Build Industry Relationships – It’s also a chance to enhance your site’s credibility and forge relationships with others in your line of work.

Open Collaboration Opportunities – Every time sites link to each other, a professional relationship is launched. This can result in future collaboration opportunities online and perhaps even in the real world.

In short, if you consider online to be an essential channel for attracting clients to your practice, you cannot afford to ignore the role of backlinking in digital marketing.

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Basic link building terms to know

Unfortunately, link building takes time and patience. Approximately 41% of SEO experts agreed that link building was the most challenging part of optimising a business for the web.

Whether you’re managing your link-building campaign in-house or outsourcing it, it’s important to know specific terms. Here are the top 10 link-building terms with definitions.

Backlink – A link from one website to another.

Anchor Text – The clickable text of a hyperlink.

Link Juice – The value passed to a website through a backlink.

Internal Linking – Links that go to other pages on your website.

NoFollow Link – A link tag that tells a search engine to pass no authority to the page you’re linking to.

DoFollow Link – A link tag that tells a search engine to pass authority to the page you’re linking to.

Link Building Outreach – Connecting to other websites to acquire backlinks, such as through pitching post ideas and networking.

Broken Link Building – Gaining new backlinks by finding broken links on other websites and offering your content as a suitable replacement.

Domain Authority (DA) – Developed by Moz, DA predicts a website’s ranking potential based largely on link profile. The higher your DA, the likelier you are to rank higher.

Natural Link – A backlink acquired organically without any intention on your part.

What makes a good backlink?

Most marketers begin by examining the domain authority. According to Aira, 65% of marketers begin their journey by assessing a website’s domain authority to evaluate the quality of a backlink.

However, remember that Google hasn’t developed the “authority” metric. On the other hand, since link-building works, we know that Google definitely evaluates authority, somehow, within its algorithm.

Nevertheless, five factors should be used to evaluate the strength of a potential backlink:

Organic Traffic – Large amounts of organic traffic indicate that Google believes a website to be trustworthy and reliable, making it more valuable.
Relevance – How closely related is the subject website? As a law firm, a link from another law firm is more valuable than one from a cleaning company.
Anchor Text – Anchor text is part of what Google looks at when ranking a page. In short, anchor text should accurately describe the page a link is pointing at.
Placement – Where is the backlink placed? More prominent locations in a piece of content increase the likelihood of users clicking on it, which makes it more valuable in Google’s eyes.
Destination – Obviously, you want to win more business, so a link to your contact or home page is incredibly valuable. The same goes for content-rich pages that can prove your authority and professionalism.

Generally, you should aim to get links from websites that already rank highly. Lots of backlinks to no-name websites won’t offer much in the way of value.

Link building techniques for law firms

Building backlinks is a time-consuming process, and SEO experts claim that the process is taking longer than before. In fact, 46.4% of SEOs said the process now took one to three months more than it previously did.

Commit to the ongoing process, and you’re likely to get the results you want. Let’s examine some actionable strategies for building backlinks.

Build the content that people want to link to. Link-worthy content in the legal business is often relevant and newsworthy.

For example, many UK lawyers published content in 2023 about the UK government’s courtroom loss on their Rwanda asylum seeker plan. Obviously, ensure that anything you create relates to your speciality.

While not as powerful as it once was, getting your practice into UK legal directories and claiming your social profiles on sites like Yelp is a great idea.

Some examples of prominent directories to tap include Infolaw, LawFirms.co.uk, and The Law Society.

Graphic of a man pointing to a phone screen

Writing content for another site in exchange for a link is a prominent strategy solicitors use for getting backlinks when their online presence is small.

Choosing reputable, high-quality websites is the key to making the most of guest posting. If you’re struggling, consider tapping your professional network for potential guest posting opportunities.

It’s also a great chance to get other industry figures producing content for your site.

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Appearing in your local newspaper for a major case or because you did something noteworthy is an excellent way to build backlinks quickly.

Some law firms with a budget have even launched programs like scholarships or apprenticeships just to get into the local newspaper.

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Suppose you don’t have time to build your content, be a resource for someone else. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is one such network that connects experts and reporters worldwide.

In exchange for providing your legal knowledge, you’ll get the chance to have your name and link appear on the publication’s website. HARO regularly attracts big-name websites, including Forbes, so it’s worth doing this.

The above five strategies will enable you to set the foundations for a successful link-building campaign; but, you can employ hundreds of different strategies and ideas to build up your profile.

Here are just some of the other ways to build backlinks:

Get interviewed as an expert.
Appear on a podcast.
Leverage your university connections to produce content in educational settings.
Do something newsworthy.
Answer questions on Quora.
Hire a link-building specialist.

How measure the success of link building for your law firm

How do you know if your link-building campaign has been a success?

Since we don’t have access to the innards of the Google algorithm, measuring link-building success isn’t an exact science. Generally, you can expect to focus on six key metrics, including:

Quality of backlinks
Anchor text optimisation
Quantity of backlinks
Link position
Referral traffic
Return on investment (traffic, clicks, social media interaction, increase in business)

Finally, you can use the same tools to measure your website’s DA to see how your link-building campaign has impacted your business.

However, successful link-building begins and ends with execution. If you demand excellence in execution (and why wouldn’t you?), connect with the brand that increased one law firm’s leads by 174%.

Reach out to us about link-building by contacting our team now!

Local SEO for Law Firms: The Basic Steps

Local SEO has grown, with every type of land-based business taking advantage of it.

Countless statistics illustrate the effectiveness of local SEO and why you should pay attention to it.

For example, “near me” keyword searches have grown 900% in the last two years, and we already know that searchers actively visit the businesses they learn about in this way. So, it makes sense that law firms should also be working on getting in on the act.

Want to know what local SEO for law firms looks like and how to do it? Let’s jump in.

What is local SEO for law firms?

Law firm SEO is working to boost your brand’s website and online presence to acquire more visibility and leads through search engines. You may be doing this by:

Working on technical SEO aspects
Garnering client reviews
Creating high-quality content
Link building
Optimising for mobile

Countless other techniques exist for boosting your SEO; but what is local law firm SEO? Essentially, it’s the same thing, but you’re targeting a specific geographic area.

With 40% of smartphone users relying on Google to find out about local solicitors in their area, this isn’t something you can afford to ignore.

Why is ranking in local search results important for law firms?

Running a law firm means you’re likely already snowed under with all the tasks that come with being in the legal profession.

So, why should you worry about ranking in local search results?

Let’s start with the obvious. Approximately 99% of consumers said they used Google to discover local businesses, and those looking for legal help will be looking for a local solicitors practice.

Other than that, more benefits include:

Better overall online visibility.
Appear before other law firms in your area.
Increase your in-office traffic.
Tap into the local shopping boom.
Gain more targeted web traffic.

All this adds up to more qualified leads that ultimately become paying clients for your law firm. Over time, this will only increase your law firm’s stature, resulting in more work and a bigger bottom line.

In other words, concentrating on your ranking is an investment that pays off every time, over time.

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Local SEO ranking factors

Ranking factors are the areas that SEO experts focus on in terms of getting the most results based on search engine guidelines. In other words, they’re the core battlegrounds your law firm should focus on.

So, what are the key local SEO ranking factors in 2023?

Google Business Profile – Formerly known as Google My Business, establishing your profile is vital to building your local presence.

On–Page Signals – This includes everything from the page titles you use to your meta descriptions and contact details.

Online Reviews – Well-reviewed law firms will consistently rank higher than poorly-reviewed ones. The more positive reviews you have, the more favourably Google will look at you.

Local Backlink Profile – Named in your local newspaper or recently won a community award? Google will see the links to these various articles and announcements and factor them into your local rankings. The same goes for online citations.

Searcher Proximity – Based on your map location, Google will rank businesses higher based on where the searcher is searching.

Searcher Behaviour – Click-through rates and the time a visitor spends on your landing pages will influence your rank.

Countless ranking factors exist, but focusing on the above will usually be enough to enable you to stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Suppose you have a well-optimised site that serves your target audience and a business name respected in the community. In that case, you’re already most of the way towards dominating your local SERPs.

Local SEO on Google

Whenever anyone talks about SEO, what they really mean is Google. Yes, Bing exists, but Google controls 83% of the search engine market, meaning this is where you should focus if you’re looking to improve your local SEO.

What exactly are the elements of local SEO SERPs? Or, what are the critical parts of the page you see when searching for a local business? Remember, 97% of first-page results will contain one or more of the following elements:

Featured Snippets at the top of the page.
Top and bottom page ads.
Video carousels.
Rich snippets containing extra information next to specific search results.
Site links.
‘People Also Ask’ boxes.

Some elements are more relevant than others. In particular, there are three elements law firms targeting local SEO should look at.

Local Packs, also known as the “Map Pack, ” contains three local results for a particular type of business and a prominently displayed map. These are the top three brands as designated by Google.

They also have a separate algorithm that contains many of the elements detailed above, but Local Packs focus more on your Google Business Profile and getting great reviews.

Google Map Optimisation – Find Out More

Local Services ads are paid ads that enable local businesses to collect more leads via message requests and phone calls.

These are far more effective for local law firms because they are guaranteed to finish at the top of SERPs.

Previously known as Google My Business, your Google Business Profile is integral to your success (or lack thereof) in the local SEO battleground.

Claiming your business enables you to control how your business appears in local SERPs. This is where you can set your law firm’s address, map positioning, opening hours, phone number and more.

With 46% of all Google searches possessing local intent, not having a Google Business Profile is akin to being invisible.

Optimising your law firm’s Google Business Profile

Claiming your business and optimising your Google Business Profile isn’t rocket science. In fact, it’s so easy that a solicitor with no SEO experience can do it in just a few minutes.

To begin optimising your Google Business Profile, follow these simple steps:

Visit the Google Business Profile website and either claim your law firm’s listing or create it.
Ensure the business information you provide is up-to-date and accurate.
Craft a business description that sells.
Add high-quality images and videos.
Collect as many reviews as possible from your clients.
Share interesting content with the post feature to improve your discoverability.
Leverage the Q&A section to provide helpful information about your legal brand.

Above all, ensure that the information on your Google Business Profile remains relevant and correct. Outdated information will only hurt your SEO footprint.

Or, use our “done for you” Google Business Profile service with Guaranteed top 3 ranking.

Local organic SEO for law firms

Local SEO is a slightly different beast, because whether you show up or not depends on many factors outside your control, such as who’s searching for you and where they’re located. However, hitting all the right local SEO ranking factors will improve your organic traffic, resulting in more leads.

Location pages

Law firms with multiple locations face a problem in ensuring they can individually target different geographical areas without causing any confusion.

For example, if you’ve got offices in Manchester and Liverpool, you don’t want someone from Liverpool clicking on your Manchester office and vice-versa.

Sadly, many businesses get these wrong because they don’t provide unique value and essentially copy-paste what’s already on their websites.

In other words, optimising for each location means making each location page unique so that you’re more likely to rank for each location search. This means creating separate but unique pages for your core areas, like ‘Family Law Solicitors Manchester’.

Local page optimisation

How do you optimise a location page to get the best results? Firstly, you should have a separate map pack and updated information for each location. It also helps to provide detailed information about every office’s service areas, complete with FAQs.

Here are some additional optimisation tips for managing multiple location pages:

Don’t duplicate content to save time.
Avoid spamming location-based keywords, such as “Best solicitor in Nottingham” or “Nottingham solicitor”. Add where needed (i.e. in your heading), and leave it at that.
Follow basic best practices, such as optimising URLs, meta descriptions and images.
Write content that’s specific to your location. In other words, what makes your Nottingham office different from your Leicester office?
Take original photos of the area.
Connect with other businesses local to you and show it.

The big takeaway for local page optimisation is to ensure it’s unique. Treat each location as a distinct business instead of just another part of your legal empire.

Building reviews for your law firm

Positive reviews for your law firm are one of the leading ranking factors in local SEO. Google’s philosophy is always to put the best businesses in the face of searchers to deliver value.

Naturally, a law firm with 500 reviews and an overall rating of 4.7/5 will be interpreted as the superior business compared to a law firm with ten reviews and a rating of 3.9/5.

So, from an SEO perspective, building up your Google reviews must be a priority. Other than providing an excellent legal service, you can generate reviews by:

Asking your satisfied clients.
Make the process simple, such as by providing a QR code.
Educate your clients on how important reviews are to you.
Integrate a “Leave a Review” button directly into your website.

Above all, there are no shortcuts to getting reviews. It’s a long-term process. Don’t try to game the system by paying for reviews for a quick SEO boost, as it will only cost you later.

Getting your firm featured in local directories and business listings

Getting your firm featured in local directories, business listings and publications is a primary local SEO ranking factor. It lends authority to your brand and proves you are a reputable staple in your community.

In most cases, this is as simple as searching for said directories and listing websites and either doing it yourself or asking them to feature you.

But like any local SEO strategy, it’s not about taking a single action or focusing on one area. It’s about your law firm’s overall digital marketing strategy, and that’s where Tao Digital comes in.

Our expertise has enabled countless UK law firms to generate more leads and win more business while they focus on serving their clients. To learn more about online success in 2023 and beyond, reach out to us now.

How to Create a Law Firm Content Marketing Strategy

Content is king, and nothing has changed in that respect.

Producing content to rise up Google’s rankings and provide valuable information to your target audience is as old as the Internet itself. Today, 73% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C have a content marketing strategy, and for a good reason. It works.

Content marketing is a core pillar of successful SEO, and the legal industry is no exception. But, like any form of marketing, you need a strategy, so here’s what you need to know about building one for your law firm.

What is content marketing for law firms?

As an art form, content marketing is a broad topic. Beginners often get confused about what it means and why they’re doing it. This is because content marketing as a concept can apply to various types of initiatives.

All forms of content have one goal: to share valuable content.

This is something that applies to every industry. In one study, 67% of marketers reported that content marketing won them new leads. From the perspective of the legal trade, content marketing can involve sharing content like:

Blogs
Q&As
Case studies
Video interviews

The point is not what type of content you have, but what type resonates with your audience. Getting this right opens up a whole new world of possibilities, with 96% of decision-makers saying that content marketing has been effective for their brands.

Should law firms invest in content marketing?

If you value gaining new clients via the online realm, content marketing is essential to getting seen. Your website might act as your virtual business card, but valuable digital assets offer a chance for prospective clients to engage with your brand.

Content marketing is a powerful channel for growing your practice when done correctly. Some of the reasons to invest in content marketing include:

Content marketing is crucial to bolstering a Law Firm’s SEO.
Strong content drives your social media presence.
Nailing your strategy can help expand your audience.
Content alone can nurture leads without picking up the phone.

Ultimately, the legal industry can benefit from content marketing as much as any other niche in the overarching economy. Today, 77% of lawyers use social media as a tool, so it’s a natural next step to add content marketing.

Does content marketing actually work for the legal industry?

Think that content marketing doesn’t work for legal practices? Think again.

If you have an audience that asks questions, you have a place for content marketing in your overall marketing strategy. The reality is that content marketing generates three times more leads than traditional marketing whilst costing 62% less.

It makes sense economically, and the results speak for themselves. If you’re still unsure whether it works for local solicitors, remember that SEO is universally important. Without content, you stand little chance of seeing any SEO progress.

What should a content strategy for a law firm include?

Writing a blog or shooting a video and tossing it onto your website isn’t enough to see results. Unlike Rome, building it and expecting people to come isn’t a viable strategy. Competition is too fierce, and without direction, there are no guarantees you’re even giving your audience what they want.

So, consider your strategy before thinking about what you want to create. Here’s what you should do before launching your content marketing drive:

Keyword Research – Keyword research tells you what people are searching for and what your audience is searching for. If people in Manchester are searching for a “judicial separation solicitor”, then it tells you this is a good subject to focus on, and for your area.

Competitor Research – Examine your leading competitors. What are they writing about? Which keywords are they using? How are they structuring their content? If it’s working for them, there’s a good chance it will also work for you, but you have to do it better.

Budget – Time is money. Whether you outsource or not, every piece of content takes time away from other parts of your business. Defining a content marketing budget early will help you to keep all your ducks in a row.

Content Type – Every type of content comes with its own pros and cons. Podcasts can be great for brand-building, but they also take massive amounts of time to produce and promote. Most law firms will start with basic blogs before investing in other content types.

Alignment – How will your content align with your brand? Consider matters like tone of voice, style and whether your content accurately depicts what you do.

Content Funnel – Building a content funnel is essential for turning casual readers into clients. Divide your content funnel into top, mid and bottom so that you can measure how effective your content is at converting.

These strategic aspects spell the beginning of a flourishing content marketing campaign. Every law firm will still have to endure a period of experimentation in the beginning, but once you hit on something good, you’ll be surprised at how effective content marketing can be.

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What type of content should law firms create?

Countless types of content exist. Maybe you’ve dreamed of having the number one legal podcast in the UK. Perhaps you’re looking at becoming a YouTube sensation. Regardless of how you approach content marketing, the only thing that matters is whether that content directly or indirectly results in more business.

So, what type of content is likely to work for your law firm?

Blogs are the core pieces of content available. They’re highly effective at delivering valuable information to your audience. Ultimately, a legal blog should educate the reader.

Service pages are often used as landing pages in the legal industry. They tell your audience what you can do for them. They’re a place to provide a solution to a problem someone has, via your services.

Don’t tell people how great you are. Show them. If you were involved in a landmark case that hit the headlines, make a big deal out of it. Writing about your big wins demonstrates to potential clients that you’re a heavy-hitter they can rely on to help them deal with their legal troubles.

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The law is complicated. That’s why explainer videos are so effective in the legal industry. Breaking down complex legal concepts isn’t just educational. It’s also an opportunity for you to introduce your staff and promote your brand.

Social media is also a type of content marketing. Due to the casual nature of these platforms, it’s a chance to make your team friendlier and more approachable.

Note that these five options are all great starting points if you’re taking your first steps into content marketing. Try not to do too much at once. A little done well will accomplish far more than casting a wide net.

Best practices for law firms creating content

There’s a misconception that answering the big questions is enough to make your content marketing successful. Whether you like it or not, law firms creating content must always have SEO in mind.

Here are some of the best practices all law firms should follow when generating content.

Answer questions in your content

Only 8% of search queries are questions, but even if you enter a few random words, Google will respond with question snippets. It underlines the importance of answering questions, so the easiest way to do this is by doing just that.

Sometimes, a big question may require an entire blog all to itself. On other occasions, an easy way to answer questions is to append an FAQ section to a piece of content.

Regardless, every piece of content should answer a question your audience has.

Featured snippet optimisation

Featured snippets are your shortcut to the top of Google. These are the answer boxes you see when performing certain types of searches. Approximately 30.9% of featured snippets rank in position one, and 8.6% of clicks go to these snippets.

Let’s get one thing clear. There’s no way to game the featured snippets system. Google decides as to who gets the snippet. You can reduce the time it takes by hitting niche questions your competitors aren’t answering, but higher-quality content always wins the race.

Some tips include:

Phrasing a question as “What is”.
Answer a question in two to three sentences.
Use well-structured headings.
Bolding the main section of your answer.

Create a content hub

Content hubs are a curated collection of content on a specific subject. It houses all types of content and divides it into a single subject.

The value of creating separate content hubs around your specialist areas is increasing engagement. They act as series that guide your reader through several types of content.

Keeping them on your pages longer and upping your click-through rates signals to Google that you offer great content. It’s also a chance to position your legal brand as an industry authority.

Prove your EEAT

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, or EEAT, is Google’s way of fighting against low-quality content, especially AI-generated. You need to figure out how you’ll hit these four points within your content.

Here’s how to do it:

Experience – This is proof that you’re not just rewriting someone else’s content. So, in the case of a lawyer, pairing a case study with an article on that case from a local newspaper would hit this point. An author profile including your credentials, whether you wrote or proofread the article, can also help with proving experience.

Expertise – Who are you? Using your leading legal superstar as the author would also hit this point because Google will scour the web for information on that person. If they’ve won industry awards, it automatically contributes to the “Expertise” rating.

Authoritativeness – This is all about who you are but with a twist. Google will also examine your entire website to see if that authority extends throughout. Content hubs help to build up your topical authority.

Trustworthiness – A combination of the previous three. You can’t aim for this one, but consistently producing high-quality content will contribute.

SEO optimisation for all content

Hitting all of Google’s best practices for content should be considered a bare minimum for all types of content.

For example, you should include headings, neatly divided sub-sections and meta descriptions for every page. Any good SEO consultant will ensure these basic SEO components are present throughout your website.

Updating and refreshing content

Evergreen content, or content that’s as relevant today as it was five years ago, creates a flywheel that keeps people coming to your website. Many brands have less than ten pieces of content that consistently attract new business for years.

However, the legal industry is especially vulnerable to disruption because of changes in the law. You may have written a lengthy guide on data privacy laws, but one change could make all that outdated. Google also takes note of that.

Regularly updating your primary content whenever there are changes can ensure they remain high-performing pieces. This doesn’t just mean changing the information but also updating your keywords and other SEO components.

Obviously, it isn’t practical to keep doing this with all of your content, but it must be mandatory with your best-performing pages.

Let Tao Digital handle your content marketing

Content marketing is one of the key pillars of quality SEO. You handle the expertise and let us handle the content optimisation, distribution and technical SEO tweaks. With an expert SEO consultant by your side, you can ensure that every piece of content is primed for success.

To learn more about what digital marketing can do for your Law Firm, reach out to us and let’s talk today.

How SEO and PPC Work Together for Law Firms

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising are like fishing nets, capturing potential clients as they browse the internet, pulling them towards your firm with enticing bait (keywords) and reeling them in with strategic targeting and optimisation.

SEO is like a trawl net, casting a wide radius to catch a large audience. PPC is like a gill net, used to target specific species, targeting specific audience segments for immediate results. With the right combination of SEO and PPC techniques, your firm can have a steady stream of potential clients hooked and ready to convert into loyal clients.

Want to know how SEO and PPC work together for the legal sector? Let’s dive in.

What is SEO for Law Firms?

Law firm SEO involves enhancing a law firm’s website and digital visibility to achieve a higher position in search engine results.

This consists of implementing technical, creative and analytical strategies to improve website content and site structure, acquiring reputable backlinks and targeting appropriate keywords related to your firm’s areas of expertise.

An optimised law website ranks higher on search engines like Google, allowing potential clients to find and contact your firm, ultimately leading to increased leads, conversions and revenue.

What is PPC for Law Firms?

PPC for law firms is a form of online advertising where you pay each time a potential client clicks on your ad. You’ll find PPC on search engine results pages (at the top), social media platforms and other websites.

With PPC, you target specific keywords and demographics but only pay for the clicks they receive. The ad’s quality and relevance, keyword popularity and your budget determine the cost of each click.

Why SEO and PPC is important for Law Firms

SEO is takes time to produce results with ongoing efforts needed to improve rankings. PPC provides immediate results but costs more money up front – once you stop paying, your website traffic dwindles.

SEO and PPC should be used together because when a law firm ranks highly organically and has paid ads at the top of the page, it is more likely to be seen by potential clients.

For example, a law firm specialising in divorce law can use SEO to optimise its website for keywords like “divorce solicitor” and “child custody lawyer.” It can also use PPC to target ads to reach people who have searched for these keywords on Google.

Speak to us about a SEO and PPC plans today – Let’s get more leads! Contact Us

How SEO strategies work for Law Firms

By consistently implementing these strategies, your law firm can increase its online presence and attract potential clients who are actively searching for your legal expertise:

Keyword Research: The first step in SEO is identifying relevant keywords and phrases that potential clients use to search for legal services. These keywords should be strategically incorporated into your website content, meta descriptions and image tags to improve your site’s relevance and visibility.
Content Creation: You can create blog posts, articles and other forms of content with specific keywords and structures whilst demonstrating your expertise in your practice area. You can also optimise for local search, so when a potential client types in “Child law Solicitor in Manchester,” for example, your family law website will pop up (for what area/s you operate in).
Local SEO: If you want to boost your online presence in location-based searches further, consider implementing local SEO techniques like enhancing your Google Business Profile, creating content specific to your area and gaining mentions on relevant local websites.
Mobile Optimization: Your law firm’s website should be optimised for mobile devices. This includes having a responsive design, fast loading times and mobile-friendly content. Why? Over 50% of web traffic comes from mobiles!
Link Building: When other websites link to yours, it shows that you are a trusted and authoritative source of information. This establishes credibility in your industry and boosts SERP rankings.

How PPC strategies work for Law Firms

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) strategies utilise targeted advertisements on search engines like Google and Bing, and social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.

These advertisements are based on relevant keywords and phrases specific to your law firm and its services. When someone searches for a related keyword or phrase, your firm’s ad appears at the top of the search results, labelled as “sponsored content” or “ad.”

You’re charged a certain amount each time someone clicks on the ad, hence the name “pay-per-click.” PPC strategies also allow you to target specific locations, demographics and behaviours, ensuring your ads reach their desired audience.

Such a targeted approach attracts potential clients actively searching for legal services who are more likely to be interested in your specific practice areas.

Another advantage of PPC is the ability to track and analyse ad performance. These metrics help you decide which keywords and demographics drive the most traffic and conversions, allowing them to refine your strategy for maximum impact.

Can you use PPC and SEO together?

Yes, PPC and SEO can be used together as part of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. These two separate tactics complete each other, ultimately driving more quality traffic and conversions to your website.

By targeting the same keywords through PPC and SEO, your business increases its chances of appearing in top positions on SERPs, augmenting clicks and conversions.

PPC and SEO data also inform each other’s strategies. For example, PPC data on keyword performance, ad headlines and other factors can help guide SEO efforts. In contrast, SEO data on keyword rankings and website traffic can inform PPC targeting and optimisation.

Does SEO or PPC have a greater ROI for Law Firms?

Generally, SEO has a higher ROI for law firms than PPC because it’s a long-term investment that generates organic traffic to your website for years to come. Once your website is out there, it is discoverable time and again.

On the other hand, PPC is expensive, especially if you’re targeting competitive keywords, and it only lasts as long as you can afford it. However, PPC is a good tactic to attract specific clients immediately.

Truthfully, it’s a bit of a trick question as you should use both unless budget is an issue, in which case you’ll want to weigh the pros and cons.

SEO Pros

Long-term investment: Once you start ranking for relevant keywords, you’ll continue getting traffic to your website for years, even if you stop investing in SEO.
Builds brand awareness and authority: When your website ranks well in search results, it shows potential clients that you’re a trusted expert.

SEO Cons

Takes time: Ranking for competitive keywords can take months or even years.
Complex and time-consuming: You’ll need to invest time and resources into creating high-quality content, optimising your website for search engines and building backlinks.

PPC Pros

Generates quick results: You can immediately start seeing results from your PPC campaigns.
Highly targeted: You can target your ads to specific audiences and keywords, which means you’re more likely to reach people interested in your services.

PPC Cons

PPC is expensive: The cost of PPC ads can vary depending on the competitiveness of the keywords you’re targeting – sometimes, it can cost hundreds per click.
Campaigns must be managed and optimised regularly: You need to monitor your spending and results and adjust your campaigns as needed.

How do you know whether your law firm should invest in SEO and/or PPC?

As a rule of thumb, you should invest in SEO first because its impact lasts longer, and then PPC. However, there are a few circumstantial considerations:

Your budget: SEO and PPC can be expensive, but SEO is typically a long-term investment. PPC can generate results more quickly, but you will need to continue to spend money on ads to maintain your visibility.
Goals: Do you want to increase brand awareness and generate more leads over time (SEO), or do you need immediate results (PPC)?
Competition: If several competitors already have an established online presence, it will take more time to gain traction with SEO alone. In this case, a PPC campaign momentarily levels the playing field.

Let Tao Digital take care of your SEO and PPC

Like expert fishermen skilfully select the perfect net to catch their target, our team is skilled at utilising SEO and PPC to attract potential clients to your firm. We have a case study, featured on the huge SEO platform Moz, about how we increased a Law Firm’s leads by 174%!

Don’t delay – reach out to us now and let us help you bring online success to your law firm.

Digital Marketing Tips for Law Firms

Digital marketing for law firms is one of the fastest and easiest ways for lawyers to grow their business. The more people who discover your law firm, the potential clients you will gain and the more growth your business will experience. So, what are the best digital marketing strategies for law firms to adopt?

Do Law Firms need to invest in digital marketing?

We always suggest that legal firms invest in digital marketing due to the fact it is one of the best ways to promote their legal services and attract new clients. It is also a great way to build brand awareness and establish your firm as a trusted and reliable source.

Digital marketing for law firms includes the use of digital channels and techniques in order to get the results you want to see, whether that’s an increase in leads or higher engagement on your social platforms.

What types of digital marketing strategies are there?

There are few different types of digital marketing strategies that you can use in order to get the results you want.

Strategies such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Content Marketing heavily focus on improving and optimising your website and how this can organically bring in new clients, as well as retaining old ones.

Other strategies focus more on how you can drive people from other avenues to your website. For example, PPC, Social Media and Email Marketing are all great ways to get new leads from external sources to your website, not just organically from search result pages.

Can digital marketing work for the legal industry?

With the right strategy implemented, digital marketing for your law firm can help to increase website traffic, generate new leads and ultimately drive your business to be one of the top ranking sites on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

However, it is important to remember that these results won’t be instantaneous and will depend on several factors, such as:

The target audience
Your competitors
The quality of your marketing efforts
The standard of your site to begin with

Kickstart your Digital Journey

Chat with the team

Digital marketing strategies for law firms

There are several different digital strategies that can be implemented to promote your legal services:

Website Auditing and Optimisation

As a law firm, it is vital you have a formidable website to stand out against your competitors, especially since so much of your business will come from local clients. Your website serves as the foundation for most of your digital marketing efforts and it’s where you will provide key information about your services, as well as high quality blogs for your current and prospective clients.

Part of having an optimised website is ensuring that it is centred around user experience (UX). This will not only take into account the needs, values and limitations of your users, but the goals and objectives of your business. Your website should be easy to navigate, accessible to all users, useful and credible.

These values also need to be carried across to your mobile site. Some of the basics to make your site more mobile friendly include:

Making your site adaptive to any device such as mobile, laptop, tablet and so on
Always use responsive design for assets like images
Use shorter meta titles since they are easier to read on mobile
Avoid pop-ups that cover content and cause visitors to leave the site

Consider where and when long-form content is appropriate.

SEO

SEO is the process of optimising your content and your site in order to achieve higher rankings in SERPs. Ultimately, implementing an SEO strategy for your law firm will bring in the right visitors organically to drive more leads and sales.

It involves a variety of different tactics, such as:

Fixing and monitoring technical issues
Implementing core SEO features like title tags, meta descriptions and schema
Working on Core Web Vitals
Creating high-quality content
Optimising content around specific keywords

Targeting local keywords will help you to show up for relevant searches made by prospects in your area. Using these keywords will increase your visibility and the potential of attracting new clients.

Optimising individual pages can help make them easier for search engines to read, which allows you to compete with other local law firms. Optimisation includes a variety of different factors including images, text, video, schema, HTML tags and so on.

Using the above techniques will help your site to rank higher on SERPs, which in turn allows you to build brand awareness and trust from your visitors. They will be more inclined to purchase your services than they would if you didn’t have a great web presence.

Our SEO tips for Law Firms goes into more detail on how this all works.

Email marketing involves sending promotional and information emails to build relationships with your audience, win over prospects and turn one-time buyers into repeat customers. Emails can include a variety of different content from new services, promoted website content or general messages on behalf of your business.

Law firms can tap into this market by asking users to subscribe on their website, dedicating a specific webpage that asks for their email and even giving away something free, such as an ebook or a PDF, in exchange for their email address.

Emails are a great way to promote traffic to your website, as the emails you send to your subscribers should contain links to pages. A good way to determine the success of your emails is through key performance indicators, such as open-rate and click-through rate.

Compared to other marketing strategies, email marketing is usually quite cost-effective, which is great for new law firms starting up.

Social media marketing utilises social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. You may use social media marketing techniques if you want to:

Promote your content and services
Build brand awareness and visibility
Gain more followers
Engage with current and prospective customers
Drive traffic to your website
Tap into a different audience

Using social media for marketing is a relatively low budget, but it does require ongoing advertising spending and most of the time, you will need a landing page designed specifically for users from that spend.

Social media is, however, a great place to achieve audience engagement. Choosing the right channels, doing research on how the platforms work and creating useful and interesting content is a tried and tested way for many in achieving a social presence.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is based on answering people’s questions and really helping them through the content, rather than interrupting them with promotions about your business. It can include content such as blog posts, landing pages, white papers, ebooks, case studies and much more.

In most cases, content marketing is used to:

Put content in front of prospective clients when searching
Improve brand awareness and online authority
Improve brand loyalty
Educate your target audience
Convert and keep leads

In order to do the above, a great strategy to include is by creating what is known as a “content hub”, which is a curated collection of content on a specific topic or subject. You can then fill your resource hub with a combination of informative and useful pieces of content which utilise your key terms and common industry queries.

Not only is this a great way to contend with your competitors, but it also increases your brand visibility online and therefore, generates organic traffic through your content showing up on SERPs.

Content marketing also goes hand-in-hand with SEO. This means that if you have high-quality content, it will significantly improve your website’s SEO, so you can enjoy more organic website traffic that will turn visitors into buyers.

Google Business Profile and Reviews

Google Business Profile is a section about your business that appears on the side of Google’s SERP. It will appear when someone searches for you or your business in their area.

It is essentially a brief overview of your business, including:

Your business name and address
Primary and secondary categories (the services you offer)
Photos of the team, business, service offering
Location on Google Maps
Opening hours and contact details
Website
Reviews

Having a Google Business Profile (GBP) can particularly help with local SEO. Ensuring your information is up to date and well optimised is highly likely to be a ranking factor that can help Google to understand your business offerings.

Every business should have a GBP as it helps potential clients find your business. For example, if someone locally searches “law firms near me” into Google, you will appear based on the location you have listed. These clients may have never found your business otherwise.

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising, or PPC, is a strategy in which you pay every time a user clicks on one of your online ads. It is most commonly done through Google Ads and it is an effective way to reach people who are searching for terms related to your business. Implementing a PPC campaign will likely be used to help increase your sales or leads.

Costs can vary quite drastically, from relatively inexpensive to thousands of pounds per month, depending on the size of your campaign. When campaigns are discontinued, the traffic generated by that campaign is also discontinued.

When users click on PPC ads, they are directed to a landing page that encourages them to take a certain action. Either:

Make a purchase
Complete a form
Download a report, or something similar.

PPC campaigns are really easy to track, especially with platforms like Google Ads. You’ll be able to track how many people view your ads as well as how many click on them and what percentage of them convert.

Which digital marketing strategy is best for your law firm?

There is no single strategy that will work best for all law firms. Even within the same industry, online and search marketing strategies will need to be tailored to your individual business.

The first step in any digital marketing journey should be a website audit. These audits allow you to gain a better understanding of the position that your site is, in order to plan the most effective next steps.

By working with an SEO agency, you’ll be able to discover and discuss:

Your goals, needs and current strategy
Your competitors and the industry
How your site is currently performing
Whether your site has any issues
What digital marketing channels would work best for your firm, and why

To get started, we just need a few details about your business and chat about where you want to go. Contact the team today.

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SEO Tips for Law Firms

In the age of searching for services online, it is important that you find a way for your law firm business to stand out amongst the rest. Using SEO techniques can significantly help you to outrank your competitors, increase traffic to your site and generate new leads.

How does SEO work for the legal industry?

A big issue within the legal industry is figuring out how to get your business in front of potential clients. Fortunately, SEO for your law firm can be the driving force to an increase in leads.

Although there is no foolproof method behind SEO in the legal industry, there are a variety of different ways to improve your chances of ranking on page one of a search engine.

Through the use of specific keywords, dedicated blogs and geographically based content, you are much more likely to appear in the search results when people start to look for law firms in their area. The higher your site ranks on a search results page, the more likely a user is to click on your site and use your services.

Is SEO important for solicitors?

Yes, SEO is absolutely one of the most important factors for solicitors to get their business out to new prospects. If you’re a solicitor looking to grow your business, organic search traffic may be a significant marketing channel that you’re overlooking.

Optimising your website for better visibility and rankings in search engines can increase traffic to your site, leading to higher conversion rates.

Get Your Law Firm More Organic Leads

Implement keywords

Keyword research and implementation is one of the most effective ways to organically increase your leads. Keyword research involves using professional tools and strategies to discover what people are searching and how you can use this to your advantage to attract them to your site.

Your ideal keywords will range from highly searched, significant industry terms to long-tail, low searched terms that capitalise on a small audience to aid in conversion.

Keywords shouldn’t be too general, as it will become increasingly difficult to rank for them – for example, the simple term of ‘family law solicitor’ is searched 4.6k times per month in the UK (Correct on Ahrefs as of August 2023). Perhaps, instead of initially trying to rank for the term “family law solicitor”, you could aim to rank for “family law solicitors Bolton”.

Search Intent

You will also want to rank for keywords/queries whereby you understand a clear search intent behind them. These are often queries which include words and phrases such as “why”, “how” and “can I”, as people are seeking to have questions answered.

The most common search types are:

Informational
Commercial
Navigational
Transactional

This means that your on-site content must match the intent of a search. For example, if you want to talk about how your Family Law firm supports people when choosing Grounds for Divorce, you may think about creating a page to showcase this service.

However, if you analyse what’s currently ranking for key terms and searches around ‘grounds for divorce’, the results are mostly blog posts. This would suggest that the search intent is informational, and you should create articles around the main topic: ‘What are the Grounds for Divorce?’.

This will then likely break down into more questions and more niche blog posts, such as ‘What Does Irretrievable Breakdown Mean in Grounds for Divorce?’. These types of content help to increase your online authority, showcasing your firm as knowledgeable in all areas and having answers to all questions surrounding one topic.

On-Page Optimization

To fully optimise your content for keywords it’s important, that they are used in the following areas on a page:

Title tag
Meta Description tag
Heading 1 and subheadings
Throughout the blog content (where relevant – never keyword stuff)
More often than not, the URL

Technical SEO can make or break your law firm’s SEO performance, making it a major factor to your success.

In basic terms, technical SEO is how “google-friendly” your website is, which in turn means ‘user-friendly’ as Google prioritises users first. Since this can get very complicated, it’s best to consult an SEO agency who specialises in law firm SEO. However, there are some things you can keep in mind with technical SEO.

Make sure your website is user friendly

There are two basics to ensure your site is user friendly:

Pages load fast, ideally under 2.5 seconds
Pages render well across screens, for both desktops and mobile

One of the quickest ways to reduce page load times is using a better hosting provider, we recommend Kinsta as they’re just the best there is. We’ve written a full review that you can read here, Kinsta Hosting Review

Make sure your site is easy to navigate

It’s important that your website has simple and easy to navigate menus and links, so users can easily find all of your pages and understand what each page is about.

Google is quite transparent about things you can do to improve your law firm’s technical SEO, and you can familiarise yourself by viewing the Webmaster Guidelines (now called Google Search Essentials).

Having great content and a Google friendly site is one thing, but having backlinks and off-page citations can help to boost your presence even more.

For SEO, backlinks work somewhat like a popularity contest. If a law firm website gets a lot of backlinks from other high profile sites, they essentially receive backing that the content on their site is correct and reliable.

Increase local SEO through off-page citations

The contact information of your law firm shows up in all kinds of places online, making it both visible to search engines and potential clients. That’s why the best way to gain more visibility from local SEO is to obtain backlinks from places where your business is displayed.

Some examples of where you can get off-page citations to improve your local SEO include:

Legal directories
Local directories, including your Google Business profile
Social profiles
Reviews and endorsement websites

Collect positive client reviews

Part of a successful law firm SEO strategy is generating more positive reviews. These reviews show users that your law firm can be trusted and will provide high-quality services.

If you have more positive reviews than your competitors, this may lead you to outrank them. As well as this, users will be more likely to choose your firm over others which have little to no reviews.

There are many easy ways in which you can increase your positive reviews. This could be by using a new review platform that offers more support than just Google reviews, or you could utilise email marketing to encourage new and existing clients in your database to leave reviews.

What benefits will SEO have for law firms?

The benefits of SEO for law firms are huge. Beyond increasing a law firm’s ranking on a search result page, SEO works to bring in more traffic which is likely to convert to leads.

Other benefits of SEO for law firms include:

Outranking local competition
Generating new traffic
Collecting more client reviews
Solidifying their law firm as a reputable authority

SEO is a long term strategy, and it needs time to work. Many Law Firms struggle with in-house capacity for well-researched and search-focused content production, local SEO implementation, technical SEO maintenance and an ongoing link strategy.

Consulting with an SEO agency for one or all of the above allows you to focus on your internal goals and keeping clients satisfied. Consistent investment and trust in SEO allows leads to flow in at the pace you want.

Speak with one of our team today about kick starting SEO for your law firm.

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7 Reasons Why you Need an SEO Audit for your Site

Regularly reviewing your search engine optimisation (SEO) plans will help you to ensure that your website is optimised for search engines. Running an SEO audit is an essential part of keeping your SEO strategy up to date, which will eventually increase the traffic to your website.

What is an SEO audit for a website?

An SEO Audit is the process of outlining and analysing potential problems or faults that will have an impact on your site’s organic performance. These errors can potentially prevent your site from ranking highly on search engines like Google and Bing.

What kinds of websites need an SEO audit?

All websites can benefit from an SEO audit due to the fact that it provides vital insights into your website, identifying areas which need improvement so you can rank better in organic search results.

Search engines and algorithms can change on a regular basis, so it’s always good practice to review your website regularly and determine how those changes have impacted your site.

7 reasons why your site needs an SEO audit

Monitoring your competition

Having an understanding of your competition is always important for your business, especially if they are ranking above you on search engines.

SEO audits are a great way to obtain insights into your competitors’ websites, including their strengths and weaknesses. You can get insights on their rankings, determining what keywords they’re using and which specific ones they’re ranking for.

From here, you can see if it’s possible to implement the same keywords into your own SEO strategy.

You can also focus on the keywords that aren’t ranking well for your competitor and boost your rankings for these instead.

Keywords

Continuing with keywords, they are one of the best ways to see if your SEO strategy is working. Regular SEO audits will provide you with insights about your websites overall performance, and you can particularly focus on what keywords you rank for and how you rank for them.

Using SEO analysis, you can regularly update your website based on the performance of your keyword rankings and assess the progress of those updates.

Mobile optimisation and website loading time

Google uses mobile-first indexing on all of its websites, meaning that the mobile version of your site is reviewed first before your desktop site. Google then ranks your site based on how well your site performs on mobile devices. When it comes to your site’s loading time, Google also ranks based on a fast loading time.

An SEO Audit allows you to uncover these issues, allowing you to change elements of your site to ensure you have a faster loading time and a more mobile friendly site.

Broken pages

Conducting an SEO Audit allows you to diagnose the status of your website. You will be able to see if you have any broken links, redirects or any pages that cannot be found. It will also showcase any issues that are reducing your site’s traffic.

These problems can quickly be identified and resolved with an SEO audit.

Website traffic insights

With a full, in-depth SEO audit using tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can find out about your search volume, clicks and impressions that your site is generating on search pages.

An increase in clicks and impressions is always a good sign that your SEO strategy is working. Just be sure to regularly monitor this data so you can be aware of any changes in traffic.

Identify on-page issues

On-page SEO refers to any optimisation of a website content and structure to improve its rankings on search engine results pages. On-page SEO aims to make it as easy as possible for crawling bots to understand what a website is about and index the content accordingly.

Using an SEO audit for on-page issues allows you to check for errors in meta titles and descriptions, headers, content and internal linking. These are annoying problems that you may not notice without the help of an SEO audit.

Helps you build a content strategy

An SEO audit can help you better understand your website’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of your competitors. Using this information, you can develop a content strategy that is more effective and will help you achieve high rankings.

SEO audits can also help you identify opportunities to create unique content that will attract backlinks and improve your site’s overall authority.

What Does an SEO Audit Include?

An SEO audit is vital for finding opportunities to improve a site’s search performance and overall page rankings. It involves finding on-page, technical, content and link related issues that need to be fixed or improved.

While each SEO audit may vary from each other, there are basic issues that site owners should always look for.

What should an SEO audit cover?

An SEO audit is the process of assessing how well your site is optimised for search engines, such as Google and Bing. The process outlines and analises potential problems or errors that will most likely impact organic performance.

There are a few key parts that an SEO audit should cover, including:

Checking your site for on-page SEO issues
Analysing the strength of current on-site, off-site and core technical elements
Ensuring your site is being crawled correctly, indexed and rendered by Google
Verifying that your site has good UX design (user experience)

Elements of technical SEO in an audit

A technical SEO audit examines various technical aspects of a website, ensuring they are following the best search operation practices. Technical audits are simply just a type of SEO audit, but they focus on issues related to your website that happen behind the scenes.

Elements of a technical SEO audit include:

Identifying crawl errors with a crawl report
Checking a sites load time
Ensuring a site is mobile friendly
Optimising titles and metadata
Checking images for accurate descriptions and ALT-text

What does an SEO audit include?

SEO audits can vary slightly from one another, but each one should analyse the basic technical SEO elements like server errors and metadata. However, every SEO audit should include technical and on-page audits.

In general, SEO audits should include:

Full website crawl
Site analytics
Site and page speed testing
URL structure
Mobile SEO analysis
Backlink profiles
Site content structure
Keyword use and research
Metadata analysis
Scheme
User experience
Image and video optimisation

Need an Audit on your site?

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SEO audit checklist

While each SEO audit process can differ since there is no universal approach, there are a handful of basic issues that you should be looking for.

We’ve outlined below the essential features of SEO audits that you should be including in your checklist.

Check for manual actions: Manual actions are when a human reviewer at Google has determined that your site doesn’t comply with their webmaster guidelines. The result of this is that some or all of your site won’t be shown in Google’s search results.
You are unlikely to have manual actions unless you’ve done something seriously wrong. However, it should still be the first thing you check because if you have one, you’ll be stuck before you even start.
Check organic traffic: Google updates its search algorithms all the time, meaning it’s important to check organic traffic drops coinciding with the updates.
Check for HTTPS-related issues: HTTPS is a secure protocol for transferring data to and from visitors. You should be checking each page on your site using HTTPS by visiting them and ensuring there is a lock icon on the address bar.
Check indexability issues: Google search results come from its index, which is a database of web pages. Your pages need to be indexed to stand any chance at ranking.
Check for mobile-friendliness: Mobile-friendliness has been a huge ranking factor everywhere since Google moved to mobile-first indexing in 2019.
Check page speed: Page speed has been a small ranking factor on desktop since 2010 and mobile since 2018.
Check for broken pages: Having broken pages on your site is never good, and if these pages have backlinks, they are effectively being wasted because they point to nothing.
Check for sitemap issues: A sitemap lists the pages that you want search engines to index. It shouldn’t list things like redirects, non-canonicals or dead pages, as those send mixed signals to Google.
Check for declining content: Rankings will rarely last forever since content can become outdated, meaning the search traffic will often start to drop off. You can solve this by updating and republishing old content.
Check for content gaps: Content gaps occur when you miss important subtopics in your content. Not including this content means you won’t rank for as many long-tail keywords and potentially won’t rank as high as you could for your main target keywords.

What to expect after an SEO audit

Before you dive into conducting an SEO audit , you will want to know what to expect. Once an SEO audit has been conducted on your site, you will receive an audit report which is a final document outlining all of the issues with your current website.

This report will be analysed in order to identify low-hanging opportunities to improve your site in one of the five key areas. These areas include technical SEO, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, competitor analysis and keyword research.

Using the data, SEO experts will interpret the raw data and suggest opportunities and strategies you can use to increase your overall traffic and visibility.

What is the difference between SEO analysis and an SEO audit?

SEO audits are long term processes in which you need to audit your entire site on-page, off-page, technical, user experience and other factors. It is the method of identifying your site’s fundamental issues which are affecting its performance and ranking.

SEO analysis however, observes all the factors above and determines how well you’re carrying out the site’s SEO strategy. It is almost impossible to make correct decisions in improving your site’s ranking in search engines without SEO analysis of your site.

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What is a WordPress SEO Audit & Do you Need One?

In this guide, we’ll explain what a WordPress SEO audit is and why you need one, allowing business owners, directors, marketing managers and more to understand the necessary steps to optimising their website.

What is a WordPress SEO Audit?

If you have a WordPress website for your business, you will likely be aware of the importance of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Naturally, you may be wondering how you conduct a WordPress SEO audit.

A WordPress SEO Audit is the process of evaluating a website, hosted by WordPress, to determine its ability to appear on search engine results pages (SERPs).

It will also identify any flaws in your SEO strategy that could be negatively affecting your site’s performance. WordPress SEO audits also give you an insight into how well your site is able to generate organic traffic.

They present an opportunity to uncover issues, such as:

Technical aspects that prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your site, such as poor architecture.
Duplicate or irrelevant content or broken links .
Slow loading times.
Problematic off-page elements ,such as low-quality backlinks.

The pros and cons of WordPress for SEO

Using WordPress does have its pros and cons when it comes to SEO that you should be aware of when deciding whether or not to use it for your site.

Pros of WordPress for SEO

User friendly CMS

WordPress is made for blogging, thanks to its strong content management system (CMS). It is extremely easy to manage and edit your content and makes it simple to organise without the need for knowledge on website management.

Plugins

There are over 50,000 plugins for WordPress users, with a range of both free and paid for. These plugins allow you to customise and enhance any WordPress site, and there are many plugins available to help optimise content, meta tags, keywords and much more. Having access to plugins like this ensures your website is SEO ready.

Responsive

WordPress has thousands of themes available which can help your sites become more responsive. How mobile friendly your site is plays a huge part in an SEO audit, since an increasing number of searches are conducted on a mobile device.

Cons of WordPress for SEO

Speed

Certain WordPress themes contain a lot of unnecessary code which can decrease the speed of the site and cause slow loading times. This can cause visitors to quickly bounce off your page, which can negatively affect how your page ranks on search engines.

Updates

Installing updates is important for the health of your website, but it can be a nuisance if it isn’t done thoughtfully. Updates can bring small problems to your site that could affect the way your site ranks on search engines.

SEO audit tools for a WordPress site

Most significant website issues that might negatively affect search rankings can be found and rectified with the assistance of reliable SEO audit tools.

Some of the best tools to use on your WordPress site include:

Google Search Console
SEMrush
Screaming Frog
Ahrefs
GTmetrix

What are WordPress SEO plugins?

Plugins can be both helpful and potentially harmful for your site. They make web page customisation easy, but they can also slow down your site if used improperly.

Listed below are a few popular plugins amongst WordPress users:

Yoast is a simple plugin that helps you to set-up meta tags and descriptions.

WP Rocket is a plugin used to optimise site speed.

Imagify is a popular plugin for image optimization.

WooCommerce is a plugin for e-commerce, turning any site into an online store.
Ninja Forms is a great plugin to create well maintained forms on your site.

Common SEO issues on a WordPress site

Too many plugins

WordPress by default is lacking in many features of SEO that professionals need at their disposal. Instead, you have to rely on plugins for basic SEO features, like Yoast.

The problem with having too many plugins on your site is that oftentimes, you will need more resources to be able to keep your site well maintained. When a plugin is updated, it can damage your entire website if it conflicts with another plugin.

Internal broken links

There is no easy way to detect broken links on a WordPress website without the use of another SEO plugin. To work around this issue, you will have to download a plugin to check for links or use tools like Screaming Frog.

Poor header tag setups

By default, your WordPress site’s theme may have poorly structured header tags. Your header tags (H1, H2, H3 and so on) are extremely important for readability.

You can change these tags by editing your theme, but you may need to have web dev experience or hire a developer to do this.

How often should I do an SEO audit on my WordPress site?

Just like any other website, regardless of if it is hosted on WordPress or not, you should be doing an SEO audit between two and four times a year.

If you are a smaller business with a small website, once every six months would be perfect. If you are a larger company, with new content being regularly uploaded every month, reviewing your site every quarter is more sensible.

If you have a relatively new website, or have never had an audit done before, then the first SEO audit you have is the most crucial.

How to perform an SEO audit on a WordPress site

There are various ways to perform an SEO audit for any website. You can go down the route of a manual audit or via an audit tool to accomplish the task.

If you choose to go down the manual route, here is a checklist for WordPress website audits:

Verify the programme and plugin versions
Check the sites speed
Review the content on your blogs
Verify WordPress’ security
Look for any broken links
Verify the functionality
Analyse your metrics
Review your SEO results.

SEO audits can be difficult to understand; that’s why the team at Tao Digital are here to help. We can perform a WordPress SEO audit for you and run through the key findings with you in order to plan the best next steps for your website.

How do I know if I need to audit my WordPress website?

There are a few different signs that your WordPress website will need an audit:

Your search rankings have fallen
You’ve launched a new site and want to check it is built correctly
Your aren’t 100% sure you’ve caught everything

You can check out our blog on ‘factors to consider before conducting an SEO audit’ to learn more about when this is necessary.

WordPress SEO audits with Tao Digital Marketing

Whether your site is new or old, is for a large business or an SME, we can conduct an SEO audit to help identify key issues and areas of improvement for your website to help its performance.

Get in touch with us today to plan your WordPress SEO audit and let us ensure that your website performs as best as it can.

The Different Types of Website Audits

Search engines are constantly evolving, and as a result of this, you should be actively ensuring that your website can keep up with these changes.

The best way to do this is by auditing your website, which helps to bridge the gap that affects your end-user experience and conversion rate.

What is a website audit?

A website audit often involves examining page performances prior to large-scale search engine optimisation (SEO) or site design.

Auditing your website can help to determine whether or not it’s best optimised to achieve your traffic goals, and can give you a sense of how you can improve it to reach these goals.

Audits are also often conducted after work on-site has been done. This helps to show progress, highlight under-appreciated areas and help to drive future online strategies.

Why are site audits important?

Site audits are important as they give a complete, detailed analysis into a website’s health, performance and speed.

Assessing these areas will give you full insight into the current effectiveness of your site. It will also show where you may be able to further optimise and/or improve your site, as well as identify issues that could be damaging to its health.

How different website audits are used

How a website audit is used for your own site will largely depend on your personal aims and objectives.

Here are the most common ways website audits are used:

Traffic analysis

With traffic analysis, we can look at where visitors are arriving from, where they came from, bounce back rates and other on-page engagement stats.

Based on the journey your visitors usually take, we can look at how your site’s design, content and functionality encourages conversion rates.

On-page optimisation

Your pages should be optimised with relevant and consistent keywords and your call-to-actions should be clear and compelling.

We will take a look at your content from a SEO perspective, looking for any potential unnecessary content or underdeveloped content to freshen up. Internal linking strategies may need to be formed to help users, and search engines, navigate your site efficiently.

Lead generation

We can audit your website to review the overall user experience and assess how well your website is optimised to generate leads. This involves taking a close look at lead generation mechanisms, such as call to actions and contact forms.

Here we will pinpoint obstacles your user faces when trying to engage with your site.

Social media

A social media audit involves looking at your organisation’s official social media accounts. This includes looking at the quality and quantity of your followers, who you’re following and the likes and shares of your most recent posts.

Taking a deeper look into your social media can help to define how your social presence impacts your website.

How do I know which audit I need for my website?

If you’re unsure which audit you need for your website, you should consider what goals you are looking to achieve by conducting an audit.

Consider:

What goals you are looking to achieve;
How many leads you are generating from your site currently and what you want to aim for;
Who your desired target audience is;
Current on-site and off-site issues, such as lack of call to actions, poor Core Web Vitals, struggling social platforms, underperforming content and so on.

From here, you should be able to have some sort of idea about the type of audit needed for your website.

If you’re still unsure, or you’re struggling to determine which audit is right for your site, an experienced search-marketing team, like us here at Tao Digital Marketing, will be able to help you. Our website auditing services are fully tailored to your website and needs.

Alternatively, get in touch with us if you think you’d benefit from some consultancy from our expert team.

Different types of website audits

A website audit is a full analysis of factors that impacts a site’s visibility on search engines, but a full website audit is not always necessary.

Listed below are some of the most common types of audits:

SEO Audit

An SEO audit is the process of outlining and analysing potential problems or issues on a site that impacts organic performance. These problems must be addressed, otherwise they can prevent your site from ranking highly on search engines like Google and Bing.

SEO audits include analysing components such as keywords, link profiles, image optimisation and goal conversions.

Technical Audit

A technical audit is simply just a type of SEO audit, but it focuses on the issues related to your website that happen behind the scenes.

Technical audits focus on the best practices for site visibility and ensuring all of the site meets all of the search engines requirements for crawling and indexing.

Content Audit

A content audit is the process of systematically assessing all of the content on your site. The main objective is to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your content strategy and adapt your current content plan to align with your marketing goals.

It also includes delivering strong insights into what messaging and tone of voice is converting and what isn’t.

We can offer advice as to what content needs to be updated, whether some pages are harmful and need to be removed, deleted or no-indexed.

Competitor Audit

A competitor audit is used to track your competitors, understand their approach and figure out what their brand is doing which yours isn’t.

The aim is to discover what techniques and methods are used for other companies within your industry and incorporate these into your own strategy in the right ways.

Audits like these highlight how many keywords competitors are ranking for, how much content they have in comparison to your site and where they place against you in terms of traffic.

Link Audit

A link audit is the process of analysing links pointing at your site to find potential problems or opportunities. You need to find the links, establish which ones are potentially harmful and which are good, and then develop the right strategy to deal with them.

Social Media Audit

A social media audit is the process of reviewing how well social media is working for your business. This audit is the process of reviewing certain metrics to analyse your current social media strategy.

These metrics can include information on demographics, engagement, locations, campaign performance and more. An audit like this can involve impressions, shares, likes, comments and other interactions.

Conversion Rate Audit

A conversion rate audit (CRO audit) is a full assessment of a customer’s journey on your site. The purpose of the audit is to identify the technical and usability-related problems that could be damaging your website’s conversion rate.

A typical CRO audit will focus on analysing the end-to-end customer experience, as well as digging deeper into a website’s analytics.

Why should your business invest in website auditing?

Investing in on-site audits can be highly beneficial to your ongoing business strategy. Knowing where you currently stand in the ever-expanding online market, and strategizing on how to best improve this, is where your business can stand out.

Have a chat with our team about website auditing and how insightful they can really be.